3 Energy Stock Stories To Spark Investor Interest On Tuesday

The Brazilian state-run oil firm is raising crude oil production, while new platforms come online, according to Petrobras’ exploration and production director Jose Formigli on Tuesday, who observed that ”The trend is heading upward, but maintenance stoppages will continue.” The platform closures and falling output at mature fields in the Campos Basin, which produce over 85 percent of Brazil’s crude, has cut into the firm’s output thus far in 2013. However, new wells and platform restarts raised production in June. Formigli said that Petrobras is also beginning discussions with potential partners for the pre-salt concession auction scheduled for October. Through new production-sharing arrangements, Petrobras is obliged to hold a minimum of a 30-percent operating stake at the Libra field that is up for offer.

Occidental announced Tuesday that it is going forward with a key pipeline to transport oil out of the emerging Cline Shale play in West Texas, which has drawn a lot of interest from oil companies. The pipeline will be able to move 75,000 barrels of oil per day out of wells in Irion, Sterling, Coke, Tom Green and Mitchell counties in West Texas, said a news release from Occidental. The oil will move from the Cline Shale region to an Occidental Petroleum station that will link up with another pipeline through which to move crude to the Gulf Coast by July 2014, said the news release.

The upper Midwest of the United States is not the only area in which TransCanada sees opposition to its Keystone XL pipeline, as it is encountering challenges at home from environmental groups and provincial lawmakers, as well. Canada’s number-two pipeline operator intends to move up to 1.1 million barrels per day from the oil sands in Alberta to New Brunswick by 2018. Environmental groups and native leaders might well push to disallow the pipeline, especially in Quebec, urged on by the work of Keystone XL opponents who have fought that project for over four years. The 2,734-mile Energy East line would need backing from provincial governments in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and in New Brunswick. That is a lot of political “third rails” to step around.